Can we upgrade Brocade switches from 7.4.1d to 8.1.2a using Ansible Tower.

[Srinivas Annavarapu]

Can we upgrade Brocade switches from 7.4.1d to 8.1.2a using Ansible Tower.

[evlonden]

Not yet unless you create playbooks that use ssh sessions to log into a switch and manually start the firmware upgrade process like that.

There is however light on the horizon as FOS 8.2 hasa new REST API (see here https://erwinvanlonden.net/2018/02/fos-8-2-0-the-first-broadcom-fos-release/) and new Brocade supported OpenSource initiaves will allow to hook into IaaS platforms like OpenStack etc. It will also allow exactly what you ask for.

So, as per Gladiator slogan: "Soon, but not yet..."

Regards

Erwin

[Srinivas Annavarapu]

Do we have any other ways that we can automate the switch upgrades ?

As we have a lot number of switches (AG's) in our environment. If it getting hard to login to each switch and upgrade te FOS.

[doc]

The BNA(Brocade Network Advisor) has an automated FOS upgrade method. If you have BNA, search for 'automatic FOS upgrade. Suggest using 'sequential' method for upgrades, unless you have an extremely robust mgmt network, and very little TCP/IP overhead. 

[evlonden]

As DOC mentioned BNA may be an option. I don'tknow how many switches you have but it can be failry easy done with a single CLI command line:

"firmwaredownload <ipaddress of ftpserver>,<ftp username>,</path/to/fos/>,<ftp password>"

Just Copy&Paste that into a CLI window from an ssh session and the process kicks off. It can indeed be timeconsuming if you constantly use the interactive menu so this handy shortcut savesa lot of time. If you have multiple FOS upgrade steps just change the </path/to/fos> option and you're steaming.